


The Peculiar Case of Jaime Barnes

by VendelynSilverhawk



Series: The Days that Bind Us [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Bucky Barnes is a girl, Gen, Genderbending, Meta, Rule 63, and flips out, and no one knows until Steve wakes up, because historical sexism makes him mad, fake journal article
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-13
Updated: 2015-02-13
Packaged: 2018-03-12 05:34:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3345455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VendelynSilverhawk/pseuds/VendelynSilverhawk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So here's the thing. <br/>     Bucky was a girl. Jaime, to be precise, but no one called her that unless they wanted to hear words they never imagined would come out of a lady's mouth. And yes, she fought with Captain America. She died for him. <br/>     And history stuck her the middle finger because it wasn't good for morale to see a woman shooting people in the back right there next to Captain America, so a beautiful fantasy was born. A tights-wearing fifteen-year-old boy named James "Bucky" Barnes behind whom America's youth could rally. The new Smithsonian exhibit commemorating Captain America features a section dedicated to Bucky and the long-time friendship of James Barnes and Captain America. </p>
<p>So here's the thing: Captain America wakes up, and goes to the Smithsonian feeling lost. <br/>     And raises hell. </p>
<p>A fake journal entry by a noted historian chronicling the spectacular misadventure of the U.S. Government that was the "Jaime Barnes Cover-up" and its equally spectacular removal from public thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Peculiar Case of Jaime Barnes

**Author's Note:**

> I apologize for any historical errors- my knowledge comes from Google, the Captain America historical fandom, one year of I.B. History of Europe, and eight years of U.S. history as taught by U.S. schools.   
>  As far as my female version of Bucky goes, I imagine that pretty much everything was the same with her as it is with male Bucky, except, of course, wearing dresses, not enlisting as a soldier, etc. As far as behavior goes I've tried to mimic it as close as I can to be true to the character. Enjoy and PLEASE point out any glaring errors/inconsistencies/things that Bucky would never ever do regardless of gender. It's very important to me.

The Peculiar Case of Jaime Barnes

By Phoebe Sanders

<Sanders, Phoebe. _The Peculiar Case of Jaime Barnes._ The Journal of American History 7.2. 2013: 277-289.>

 ~

Captain America. Hero. Legend. Ghost. That name has been omnipresent in the mindset of the American people since the first propaganda poster was issued in 1941, and the influence of the “Star Spangled Man” only grew as bond campaigns gave way to the front lines of Europe and the man formerly known as Steven Grant Rogers became a hero in earnest, not just a government monkey (Appendix I.A.). Of course, history has become tangled with myth in the seventy years since his death, and among contemporary historians the true challenge is overcoming the fiction of the 1940s to undercover facts either ignored or so well-hidden by the government and S.H.I.E.L.D. that in light of recent discoveries, early documentaries on the subject of Captain America might as well call themselves fanfiction.

                Perhaps one of the most debated issues among historians dedicated not solely to Steven Rogers, but the Howling Commandos, is the role played by Sergeant Jaime Buchannan Barnes, whose true identity was for years concealed behind the tight-wearing fifteen year-old sidekick to Captain America in the propaganda comics issued during and after WWII (Appendix I.B). _James_ Buchannan Barnes, aka “Bucky,” was for years thought to be either a metaphorical symbol for America’s youth fighting the war on the home front by picking up scraps and tending Victory Gardens, or a more public-friendly interpretation of the real James Barnes, whose role in the war was somewhat less heroic-seeming that Captain America’s (Hugh 69). Often the true horrors of war were concealed, as to convince the American populace of the innocence of every soldier was preferable to having Captain America team up with a marksman who had no qualms about shooting enemy soldiers in the back, even if it was in defense of his nation.

                The 1970s saw the first emergence of the “true” face of Bucky Barnes, the woman found cut out of Captain America’s footage from the front lines in original tapes released by the government after the Freedom of Information Act was passed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. For years after the tapes were found, only a small niche of historians insisted that this mysterious woman so frequently seen with Captain America was in fact _Jaime_ Barnes. This minority held to the belief that the government of the WWII era wasn’t comfortable with Captain America having a woman for a sidekick, or to admitting letting a female soldier go into combat with one of America’s first fully integrated teams, the Howling Commandos. A Frenchmen, Englishmen, African American, and Japanese American were already Captain America’s wingmen- to the devoted historians of the time who endured relentless mockery from their peers for suggesting that Bucky Barnes was a woman, the idea of Jaime fighting in this diverse group was hardly far-fetched (McCall 41). Coupled with the fact that no pictures of James Barnes exist, and the U.S. census recorded three Jaime Barnes in the New York area around that time, their argument was a valid one.

                In light of the discovery of Captain America frozen in a WWII-era Nazi jet, and his subsequent revival by S.H.I.E.L.D., the media storm surrounding him allowed historians to get a first-hand account of his missions and ask questions plaguing the academic community for over seventy years. However, S.H.I.E.L.D. made access to the revived Steven Rogers especially difficult, and upon reintegration into the modern world Captain America himself denied contact to any and all reporters and historians (Tsung 23). When, however, Captain America attended the opening of the Smithsonian’s new Captain America exhibit and saw the speculative section of the exhibit concerning Barnes, he was quick to correct any and all historical errors, and somewhere those distinguished historians who championed the recognition of a woman fighting on the front lines during WWII cheered as years of suspicion were confirmed: Bucky Barnes was a woman, a nurse, and one of the bravest soldiers Captain America ever knew.

                In a later interview with Rogers, Jaron Whittier of the Huffington Post got the chance to ask him about Bucky’s role in the war and his reaction to learning that for seventy-three years his best friend was practically expunged from historical record in favor of a fifteen-year-old cartoon in tights who ran around saying “Gee Willikers” (Hugh 14). The full transcript will be discussed in chapter three of this volume, and can be found in Appendix 2.A.

~

The rise of Jaime Barnes into the ranks of the Howling Commandos was mere speculation until Captain America offered the real story. While the truth is a far cry from what historian James Gretto wrote about in his 1989 journal article _Why the World Needs Jaime Barnes,_ Gretto and other members of Barnes’ dedicated historical circle welcomed the truth with enthusiasm and open arms (Connelly 1). Thanks to Captain America’s willingness to correct the errors of the Smithsonian and countless others, and new governments declassified by S.H.I.E.L.D. at the Captain’s request, Jaime Barnes finally gets her story told.

 ~

_Chapter Two:_ The Beginning

 World War II was not the friendliest of climates for women, especially women like Jaime Barnes, as Rogers described her. Headstrong, tough, and most definitely “one of the guys” (Whittier 2) when it came to bar fights and less than ladylike language, the onset of the second World War was a slap in the face to all women with aspirations of doing more for their country and their loved ones than being nurses or growing victory gardens while their husbands, sons, and brothers went off to die.

                While 1939 was the beginning of women’s roles in society increasing exponentially, they were still in the minority on the battlefield. Munitions factories, military bases, and even cargo planes needed able-bodied workers, and more women rushed to fill those atypical roles the more men were shipped off for Europe, but women on the front lines were few and far between, and lacked all recognition until years after the war was over. Therese Bonney, Clare Boothe Luce, Janet Flanner, and Esther Bubley were a few of the female journalists who revolutionized reporting from the front lines and drastically expanded the horizon for American women by proving their mettle in the newsroom and without.

                For Barnes, who wasn’t much of a writer and abhorred the idea of working on a military base, munitions was the next best option. A factory near Brooklyn hiring women since the male workforce was all but gone snatched Barnes from her job as a secretary, and as new hairstyles and cloths came into fashion, so did the idea of the strong women, an ideal that Barnes represented in spades. Of course, she didn’t care one whit about what men or women, about what society thought- her sole focus was on doing what she wanted to do, and on surviving the harsh winters and sweltering summers without losing her home, her job, or her asthmatic best friend.

                Since they were children, Barnes and Rogers were thick as thieves, and that bond only strengthened as they lifted each other up through tragedy and heartbreak and finally ended up living together in a dingy little flat in the middle of Brooklyn that had no icebox, electricity that shut off at night, and nothing like heat or air conditioning to speak of. Despite the unorthodox arrangement of a young man and woman living together, Barnes and Rogers insisted that they were only friends, and settled for ignoring any criticism or speculation that a strictly gendered society threw their way.

According to early Captain America biographies that got at least the early details correct, Rogers was known for his underdog attitude and penchant for getting into fights for good causes. It was also common knowledge in their borough that Barnes didn’t shirk from the idea of rescuing him, or from offering bullies her famous right hook. The day that Rogers was enlisted for the SSR Super Soldier Program, just hours beforehand Barnes had to rescue him from a beating outside of a New York movie theatre (Whittier 4). That was also the day that Barnes received her own orders, after weeks of basic training.

Barnes was accepted into the Army Nursing Corps after enlisting in 1940, and joined the 107th Airborne Division on their tour to Europe to combat the movements of the Nazi Deep Science Division, aka Hydra, whose technological advancements were not common knowledge but were a major roadblock to an Allied victory. By the time she was shipped off for Europe, Rogers had been whisked away to a secret SSR training base where all potential Super Soldier candidates had been gathered, and it would be a year before both were reunited again. That day behind the movie theatre was the last time Rogers would see Brooklyn for seventy years, but for Barnes, it was the last time she would set foot on U.S. soil.

 ~

_Chapter Three: Europe_

While females have been dying on the battlefield since the late 1700s, WWII was a major step towards female equality in the line of military duty, with many courageous women paving the way for women’s rights and the deconstruction of a patriarchy that kept them from, in their minds, helping their nation to the fullest of their abilities. Jaime Barnes is by no means the most famous of these women, but the U.S. government’s systematic erasure of her identity from history marks the near-destruction of one of the most unlikely and outstanding female military success stories in history.

                Little is known of her first tour in Europe, prior Captain America’s emergence as more than a bond salesmen, and no letters exchanged between her and Rogers were recovered after their deaths, but buried stories and mentions of Barnes in a few memoirs of veterans in the 107th shed some light on her contributions to the war effort. As a member of the Army Nursing Corps, Barnes was sometimes directly behind the front lines tending to wounded soldiers, and faced death every day, if in smaller doses than the soldiers she treated. According to Frank Huber, she was “Tough as nails, Nurse Barnes was- hell, half the men were too afraid of her to die while she was treating them, since she always said she’d never lost a man before” (42). Once she even saved the life of a commanding officer when an enemy soldier got past the lines and into the tents, taking his gun and shooting the man point-blank (Huber 40).

                Despite Barnes prowess as a healer and expert markswoman, it wasn’t until the capture of the 107th by Hydra that she truly crossed the line between nurse and soldier. Somehow she ended up captured with those of the 107th who didn’t escape or die in the Hydra onslaught, troops grossly underprepared for the Nazi Science Division’s superior firepower and fearfully advanced weaponry. After enduring weeks of being a Hydra prisoner, she and her fellow soldiers were freed by Captain America, making his European debut by literally bringing the Hydra base to the ground.

                Following the incident, and after testimonies from both Captain America himself and the various soldiers imprisoned with Barnes who commended her fighting spirit and refusal to let the men around her despair, Colonel Chester Phillips of the SSR agreed to promote her to Sergeant and granted her a spot on Captain America’s top team, famously dubbed the “Howling Commandos” by Timothy “Dum-Dum” Dugan (Whittier 5). From then on, Barnes was literally one of the guys, traveling, fighting, and bunking with the other Howling Commandos and lending her sharpshooting skills to the Allied efforts until her death in 1942, falling from a Hydra train during the capture of Doctor Arnim Zola.

~

Appendix 2.A.

Interview conducted by Jaron Whittier (JW) of the Huffington Post, present Captain America aka Steven Grant Rogers (SR), December 3, 2013. Postmark Café, New York.

JW: Hello, it’s nice to meet you.

SR: You too. Thanks for agreeing to do this interview.

JW: I’m the one who should be thanking you- every other journalist in New York would give their left arm to talk to you. But, I’m not here for that, of course. I just want the truth.

SR: And I am prepared to give it to you.

JW: Great. [typing sounds] So, obviously, we’re here not only because the entire world is still buzzing about you, even though it’s been almost two years since you were found-

SR: It doesn’t feel like two years [laughs].

JW: I can imagine, with all that you’ve been up to, between dodging reporters and historians and aliens trying to level New York. So it’s fairly safe to assume that you haven’t gotten much time to yourself to explore not just the modern era, but your image and history in it.

SR: Actually, I’ve had too much time to myself, I think, between New York and now. In the beginning I was so busy just trying to understand everything, and after that S.H.I.E.L.D. practically kept me under house arrest-

JW: Are you… allowed to say that?

SR: Probably not, but they can’t stop me.

JW. Ok, then. You were saying?

SR: Once I was finally given some room to breathe, I honestly didn’t want to find out what happened to everyone. It may have been seventy years, but for me it felt like I’d seen them a few days ago. I avoided it all for an embarrassingly long amount of time.

JW: But the Smithsonian invitation arrived and… what changed?

SR: I don’t know. After New York, being on my own… I guess I just had to know. Well, before that I learned a little, how the war ended, where all the guys were buried, but it was hard to want to know anything beyond the fact that they were dead.

JW: [softly] Yeah.

SR: But the invitation came and something in me just said, ‘Steve, stop moping around. You owe it to them to figure out how they did, where their lives took them.’ It was an insult to their memories to keep them buried.

JW: So you went to the opening of the Captain America exhibit in DC and that’s where you first learned about Bucky?

SR: Yeah. I walked in and everything seemed correct, and it was great to read about what the Howling Commandos did after I froze, but then I got to the section about Bucky, bracing myself for a painful reminder, and then I saw the name ‘James’ next to a picture of one of the Captain America comics and turned to my tour guide and was just, ‘What is that? Why did they get her name wrong?’

JW: Can you tell me what you felt when you looked over the exhibit, and realized that while you were asleep history essentially thought that your best friend was a man?

SR: I was shocked, to say the least. Bucky was one of the bravest people I ever knew, and waking up to find out that she was ignored in favor of a comic is frankly awful. She gave everything for the war and the team; if she could have enlisted as a soldier, she would have, but at the time the rules put her in a nursing unit with the 107th.

JW: That’s more than any modern historian knows about Bucky.

SR: And that’s why I asked for this interview. When I woke up, I thought that maybe this century would be better than the one I grew up in, and it is in some ways-

JW: What would you say your favorite thing is so far?

SR: Internet cat videos, probably. But, I can’t believe that the idea of a woman fighting with Captain America was so strange that it still isn’t common knowledge. I mean, Peggy Carter's gotten her due, what's so strange about Bucky getting hers?

JW: So you had no idea of how she was being erased, back then or now?

SR: No. We heard that there was a comic at home based on Captain America and the Howling Commandos, but we never got our hands on any of them- learning that they made Bucky into a teenage boy was a little… disturbing, to be honest.

JW: And have you read any of them since?

SR: A few, and I think I would have liked them if they were accurate. Maybe writing about a dame killing people wasn’t a popular idea for raising morale on the home front, but that doesn’t excuse her being ignored completely.

JW: Exactly, but now we can get the whole story. Right here, today. I suppose… we’ll start at the beginning? Before both of you enlisted. Just talk, and I’ll take notes, maybe ask a question or two.

SR: Alright.

JW: The floor is yours, Captain.

SR: I guess I can’t really remember a time without her. We were best friends, and being ninety pounds soaking-wet meant that having a friend who wasn’t afraid of saving me was literally a life-saver sometimes. I remember, every time I got into a fight or some sort of trouble-

JW: You, a street fighter?

SR: Well if I saw a dame- woman, who wasn’t enjoying being pestered by a man, or somebody getting picked on, I couldn’t just do nothing, could it?

JW: Of course. Please continue.

SR: Every time I got into a fight, the guy- sometimes guys- were always so surprised to see a woman coming towards them with her fists clenched. By the time we moved in together to pool our cash for an apartment, most everyone around there knew that Bucky wasn’t someone to be messed with. Hell, she’d outdrink guys at the local bar.

JW: Society’s expectations for women of the time didn’t bother her, then?

SR: Not really.

JW: So I guess you could say she was one of the guys?

SR: Well, I wouldn't go that far.

 

JW: No?

SR: Bucky wasn't a guy, she was a woman and she was proud of that. We just both knew things would be easier for someone like her if she wasn't, which was something that really grated on her. That’s something I think she’d like about this era, ‘Feminism,’ I think it’s called. Of course, she probably wouldn’t feel the need to identify as one, she’d just act like it. For her, there wasn’t a reason for men and women to act differently, and once the war started I knew she felt more at home in that munitions factory than she ever had working as a secretary, dodging passes by her boss every other Tuesday. She loved going on dates and wearing pretty dresses, it was just that back then those were a symbol of being weak for something you couldn't change, and that was something Bucky hated almost as much as I did.

JW: And you never thought of her romantically, or questioned living together?

SR: I was a little nervous about what people might say, but I don’t know if I would have survived without her.

JW: But then the war came.

SR: Then the war came.

JW: What inspired her to enlist? Patriotism? A sense of duty? Something to prove?

SR: Honestly, I don’t know. She was adamantly against the war, said it was stupid for men to sign up to get shot at, and threatened to kill me if I tried to enlist. Then out of the blue she said that if some recruiter was mad enough to take me, and if all the men were dying anyway, she might as well serve her country, since munitions alone weren’t going to win the war. I don’t want to speculate too much, but I think she was just restless. She was also a good shot, and pretty stubborn once she’d made up her mind, so while I tried to get someone to take me, she signed up for the Army Nurse Corps.

JW: And no one would take you?

SR: A ninety pound asthmatic with a family history of nearly every illness known to man? No, but Bucky was off for basic training within a few days and after that I barely saw her until the night before she shipped out.

JW: And what happened that day, before she left? That was the same day you were recruited by Doctor Erskine, wasn’t it?

SR: Yeah. She saved my sorry ass from getting beat to a pulp outside a movie theatre, and said she’d gotten us a double date for the Stark Expo- one last fling before she went off to war. After that I didn’t see her until I invaded that Hydra base in Europe.

JW: After almost a year apart, not knowing what was happening to her, with no way to know that she’d gone into combat, what was going through your head when you saw her in that base?

SR: Uh… ‘Thank God Bucky’s alive and someone finally gave her a gun.’

[laughter]

SR: Really, though, she looked like hell but wouldn’t get out of there without me, even though the entire base was about to come down on top of us. And then she insisted on walking the entire way back to base camp, even though a few of the guys told me that she’d been treated the worst and had barely slept at all. She went through hell in there- I couldn’t believe I was seeing her again.

JW: And after that she became a member of the Howling Commandos.

SR: Yeah.

JW: How did that happen, exactly? A nurse becoming a member of Captain America’s private attack team? I imagine those in command didn’t take your suggestion very well.

SR: It wasn’t a suggestion. I told Colonel Phillips, who was in charge, that I wanted a team and I wanted her, Dugan, Falsworth, Morita, Dernier, and Jones on it, if they all said yes. He didn’t bat an eyelash- just said that he’d talk to the higher-ups and that I was in charge of seeing if they’d all agree to go back into the fray with me.

JW: And they did?

SR: I couldn’t believe it either, but they did.

JW: What about Bucky? What were their reactions to having a woman on the team?

SR: Even before they found out that she was the reason I’d stormed the base in the first place, they just said that as long as she knew how to shoot and was strong enough to help carry the injured, they didn’t have a problem. Dum-Dum and Falsworth were in the same cell as her in the Hydra base, and they said that they’d feel safer with her around. Surrounded by men and Nazis, and Falsworth said she never gave up hope, never let any of them give up and waste away. Told them all that help was coming but until then they’d have to help themselves.

JW: So she was a hero before she joined the Commandos.

SR: Hell yeah. She’d always been a hero, the army just didn’t think so until Dum-Dum stood up for her against the brass and said they would win the war with Bucky on our side and that keeping a crack shot out of the battle was the stupidest decision they could make.

JW:  So what happened after that?

SR: She was promoted to Sergeant and became a member of the team.

JW: And nothing changed? She was treated just like any other soldier?

SR: Of course, except that when we were back at base she’d bunk with Peggy instead of the rest of the team, which no one complained about, of course.

JW: Peggy Carter, one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D.? Were she and Sergeant Barnes good friends?

SR: I can’t speak for either of them, but from what I saw they got along fine. Bucky was always a little more hands-on than Peggy, but I remember one time when we were packing up to leave and when Bucky came out to the truck she was wearing bright red lipstick and all we could do was stare. I’d seen Bucky wear makeup, of course, but she barely did it and seeing her in Peggy’s bright red lipstick while in uniform, cheeks smudged with dirt and a gun slung over her shoulder… it was… well, I don’t think I’d ever seen Monty speechless before.

JW: She sounds like a real stunner.

SR: She was, and all the guys knew it. But she was also one hell of a soldier.

JW: And now the world knows it, too. Hopefully the Smithsonian will have that exhibit fixed soon. Our time’s up, unfortunately-

SR: It was great to talk to you.

JW: And you, Captain.

SR: I look forward to reading the story.

[end of tape]

 -

Works Cited

Hugh, Barrett. _The Truth of James Barnes, Beyond the Comics, the Propaganda, the Lies_. New York: Yale Press. 1956. Print.

McCall, Susan. _Integrated Units in World War II, How the Howling Commandos Changed The Game_. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Inc. 1966. Print.

Tsung, Min-Ho. _Why Captain America Deserves A Break_. The Washington Post 7 Mar. 2012: A4. Print.

Connelly, Karl. _The Minority Reaction to Jaime Barnes, and Captain America’s Biggest Historical Support Group_. Cambridge University Press 9.8. 2014: 109.

Huber, Frank. _Memoirs of a Georgia Boy_. New York: Appleton Inc. 2000.

**Author's Note:**

> Comment please!! They are the food I eat, the water I drink, the air I breathe! Also, there will be more in this universe!


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